He said they would hit rural areas and lead to greater road congestion and pollution.

And Jonathan Bray, of the transport campaign group Save Our Railways, said: "Unfortunately, protection for services set out in the contracts that the privatised companies have signed does not give adequate protection to the existing level of service.

'Spiral of decline'

"When that existing level of service is poor, as it is on many of the rural lines, further cutbacks are a particular cause for concern."

Mr Bray said rail operators should tackle the "spiral of decline" in rural services.

George Muir, director general of the Association of Train Operating Companies, said he sympathised with people who relied on rural railways in areas which were experiencing cuts.

But he added: "In total we are running 1,000 more trains across the network than we were before, and we are running more cross-country rural and semi-rural services than we did before."

He said private companies were trying "every possible way they can" to make rural services work.